14 days till Alageasia's Downfall:
Darkness surrounded him. He felt alone, cast out of the world he once knew. He felt pain, pain in the area were his chest would have been, except he couldn't see his torso, and it stung like mutiple stabs from an icy dagger. He could feel it crawling through his body, slowly, intimatily, in every way he feared and despised. He felt disconnected from his body, unable to move, but as wierd as it was he still felt as if he were alive.
Occasionally he would feel the sharp click of some noise, echoing through the darkness, sounding as though it had traveled an unknown distance to reach his ears. With every tap a spark of light would bounce into existance, filling the cavern of darkness. Shapes and color, though blurry, would be visible for a couple seconds before fading away.
Once again came the flash of light and he saw something move, as if looking into the void, searching for him. The shapes became more vivid, flowing into contour like fluid pouring into a solid pan. He turned his head to the side and noticed a small room with a lit fireplace in the corner and a range of shelves, desks, and drawers. At the moment a thick couldron was hanging over the fire, boiling water inside.
He shifted his vision and at the foot of the bed, sitting in a rickety, old chair, was an elderly man. In his frail, wrinkled hands was an old clay cup, the rim was chipped in various places and it was filled with a strange liquid. The man had an ancient aura around him, he felt that this man was older than he appeared but didn't voice his thoughts.
The senior was looking at him intently with cold, gray eyes. His salt and pepper hair was short, and a thin beard lined his cheeks and chin. His hooked nose cast a shadow over his upper lip as he spoke.
"Are you feeling well?" He set the cup down on a desk at his side.
Jeod shrugged as a jolting pain lined his right side. He sat up, ignoring the stinging that now spread to his upper chest, the blanket cascading into his lap. He was wearing a thin cotton shirt that looked and smelled as if it had been worn before.
"Where am I and who are you?" He asked blankly.
The man grabbed the cup again and held it out for Jeod who, with a struggling reach, took it. It held a darkish liquid that was steaming as though it came directly out of the boiling pot of water.
"Drink it, you are in pain, this will help calm your nerves." The man spoke with no tone, as if nothing excited him.
Jeod held the cup to his face, twirled it, watching the contents spin, and sniffed. He flinched and pulled it away from his nose, coughing while making a sour expression at the man.
"What is this?" He said, tempting to cough again as he held it back.
The man laughed, showing for the first time a sense of emotion. He ran a hand through his hair and replied.
"It has a revolting smell, but it will blunt out your pain."
Jeod tilted his head down to the cup, rubbing his index finger along the rough side. He didn't want to consume the liquid, but he also refused to continue on in pain when there was a way to block it. So he took a sip; it was tasteless at first and warmed his throat. The warmth stopped in his stomach, but slowly began spreading throughout his body.
The man chuckled as Jeod's eyes were held open wide. "Keep going, it will not retain the full effect if not completely drank." He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
Jeod finished the drink and held the cup in his lap. He closed his eyes as he felt energy rush through him, seemingly wiping out the sting in his side. Slowly it felt like water would when pouring gently over his hand, then it faded leaving no existence of the previous pain.
Jeod opened his eyes and thanked the man.
"It was either that or let you die a horrendous death, so I chose the most humane solution." The man stood, brushing off his pants, and took the cup from Jeod and made his way to the fire place, scooting a chair towards him and started washing the cup in the pot, seemingly immune to the boiling water inside.
Jeod's eyebrows met and he spoke. "How would I have died if not for your generosity?"
The old man looked over to him, his hands still scrubbing the cup with a thin rag, his eyes held a deep anger and sadness. Jeod felt the pressure of his gaze seep out to him, he almost regretted asking the man when he got his reply.
"The Grietr, or that worm the Ravtelr put in your body, is a harmless creature. It is unable to do anything to harm it's prey until it dies. Most creatures like birds and mice will eat the worms whole. Their mistake." He coughed into the crease of his forearm. "The Grietr, if not killed instantly, will travel through the body, eating away from the inside, out. If it was killed it's corpse releases a horrible toxin that effects the brain only.
"The venom will attack key points of the brain; most specifically the Ventromedial Hypothalamus, Amygdala, and the Frontal Cortex. What does it do when it gets there? Well, the Hypothalamus alerts your body when you consume more food than your stomach can take, the Amygdala which controls emotion and memory, and the Frontal Cortex which enables problem solving, morality, and inhibiting impulsive action.
"Once this happens the infected human will not be able to control their actions or recognize what they are doing except feeding. You may not realize the importance of this and the affects that come with the infection. But this will cause the human to become uncontrollably violent and unable to remember his or her life. At that point the human becomes a mindless berzerker."
Jeod stored that information, not wanting to believe it. He knew things that others didn't, and for this random stranger to be telling him this, he had a hard time accepting the facts. It all seemed like a false fantasy that the man was trying to articulate.
"Thats impossible." He said, watching as the old man looked at him with a confused expression.
"How so?"
Jeod was speechless at first, he hadn't expected that response. But when he spoke, he tried his best argument.
"It just can't happen. I know I've experienced some events these past few days that I refuse to believe happened, but they did. This... Grietr, it can't do... it is just."
He stopped. This was a matter he had no knowledge of, why should he be the one to reject the idea.
"I understand your disbelief, but one does not simply believe one can summon fire just by the will of that person's mind. Yet it happens. One denounces the thought of a man who rides a dragon and wields a flaming sword, yet that man exists, as well as his dragon and sword. The biggest fear of humans' is not their enemy, but the tiny things that they don't have knowledge of.
"The Ravtelr are a vicious race, they despise the other races in Alageasia. They would love nothing more than to kill all of us, but they can't. That is why they use the Grietr. Once a human becomes infected he or she will attack other humans, spreading the virus. Give some time and life in Alageasia will be extinguished. They are very smart, these Ravtelr."
The man took the cup out of the wtaer and placed it along a shelve behind him, he slung the rag over the edge of the pot. Then he stood and returned to the chair he had been sitting in when Jeod awoke.
Jeod nodded his agreement. With all the things happening lately, he wouldn't be suprised if the sky started falling.
"Is there a way to stop the infection?"
The man nodded. "Stay away from the infected."
"I mean if someone is already infected?" Jeod bit his bottom lip.
"No."
When Jeod remianed quiet, the man continued. "Would you mind if I examined your memeories?"
Jeod arched his eyebrows and shook his head, suprised at the sudden question.
"Don't worry, I will only look at memories you allow, if I over step my boundries, close your mind and I will not pry."
Jeod's mind flashed through hundreds of thoughts, all promoting negative results. He hardly allowed magicians in Nasuada's court to examine his mind, let alone a complete stranger, possibly a half-crazed man, into is head.
"I only need to find exactly what and how these creatures went about taking on the entire coast. After that I will let you leave." The man appeared stone-faced, letting no emotion seep out of his facial expression.
*I can't trust this guy.* Jeod thought, preparing to bolt for the door.
"You can trust me just as much as I can trust you. And you are too weak to even stand so don't think about trying to escape." The man pulled out a pipe and crumbled some type of plant between his thumb and index finger, letting it fall into the mouth of the pipe. Then without a word or match the inside sparked and a soft orange glow emitted from it.
"How... how did you... were you reading my mind?"
The man puffed on his smoking device, pulled it away from his face, and blew out a cloud of smoke. "In a way I was, but I also wasn't." He noticed Jeod's confusion. "When a person doesn't make an attempt to shield his or her mind, a skilled individual can read those thoughts as they float unconsciencously into the world around them."
Jeod figured that this man was more powerful than he originally thought, and this caused him to become deeply superstitious about it. He had woke up clueless about the entire situation, if he could learn some useful information by letting this man read his memories, then so be it. But if the old man crossed the line, Jeod swore he'd kill him.
"Fine, I'll let you observe my mind for whatever it is you seek." He said harshly, hoping to scare the man.
The senior nodded. "You may find that I am harder to kill than any regular human of yours, but if it makes you feel safer," he reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out a dagger, Jeod tensed. "use this if I over step my bounds."
Jeod took the dagger by the wired handle and held it tightly. "I'm ready."
"I'll try and make it as quick as I can."
Jeod nodded, but was still unprepared for feeling another presence in his mind. It was calm and powerful, yet ancient and frail as if it had experienced more than he could imagine. It shifted through each memory quickly, avoiding ones and remaining in others. Jeod did as the man instructed and blocked anything he wanted to be unknown, he only tensed when the probe stopped...
(Flashback):
The house shook violently, covering them with dust that fell from the roof beams above. The explosion was strong and blasted fire through the alley way just on the otherside of the wall to Jeod's study, shattering the only window in the room and shooting fire through the hole.
A gust of wind ripped through the aperture and pulled stacks of paper into the air where they then settled in heaps upon the floor. Jeod and Helen ducked for cover as debris from outside rushed in, pelting them with tiny rocks and small splinters.
When the destruction finally ceased, Jeod looked up to see a messy room and Helen, almost hugging the door frame, her finger nails digging grooves in the wood. He stood and stepped on small peices, reducing them to smaller ones with sharp cracks, and made his way to his wife.
"What has happened?" She asked, releasing the door post from her death grip. Dark gray soot was smeared across the bridge of her nose, and a crimson line was upon her cheek.
Jeod shrugged, "I haven't a clue." He slowly bent down and started picking up fallen books and papers, putting them back into neat stacks on his desk. Except for the ones he landed on, which were crumbled, he threw in his trash bin. He huffed when he noticed his bottle of ink lying on it's side with a large trail of black splattered across the wood desk.
Suddenly the house groaned agian and the floor shifted higher. The entire structure lifted and some of the walls fell apart in a cloud of dust. Jeod and Helen fell to the ground as their shelves and tables tipped over. Their screams were drowned out by the unnaturally loud groaning noise that sounded like an earthquake.
Part of the cieling collapses over Jeod's desk, nearly landing upon him in the process. A shelf was knocked over, crushing the desk and sending splintered wood throughout the room. The ground below the far corner of the room shifted down, bringing with it part of the house.
Through the gaping hole Jeod could see the western part of Teirm. Fire and explosions vibrated randomly between the houses as they collapsed, smoke and fire was rising slowly in the distance. The ground was crumbling, rising and decending like waves in a stormy ocean as the earth buckled exteremely.
A man comes running into the room, avoiding fallen objects, and shouts, "Follow me, we have to get out of here!"
It was their nieghbor, William. He stood their balancing on the shaking, uneven floor with his hand outstretched to them.
"I think we're safer under here!" Helen shouted back, she happened to be under a table with her hands over her head.
The whole house rides up on a wave of ground and the roof groans, cracks form on the tile floor, all in displaced patterns. Carpets are strewn across the floor as the cracks pull them apart.
Finally Jeod pushes his wife out from under the table. They scrambled out of the room in a panic, Helen is cut on the shoulder by a falling piece of glass, but she hardly notices. Just before they reached the door, their nieghbor stops them as a plank of wood lands across their only exit, bringing with it a shower of dust.
Several windows shatter as another tremor tears the ground apart. Both Jeod, Helen and William fall to the ground as the living room cieling collapses, letting in a bombardment of light created by the fire outside. Before their eyes the living room sinks farther below as the ground gives way, dark soil and dust streams down the new hole and piles into the depression, covering their chairs and tables.
Helen looks over her shoulder as a crash sounds in the kitchen. Some shelves smash to the ground, splattering plates, cups, and silverware across the floor. The kitchen floor cracks and is lifted higher, parts of the connecting walls rip and collapse. This gives way for an exit as the wall opens up to the outside, bricks and wood fall from above as an apartment building crushes the living room, filling the hallway and kitchen with thick, brown dust.
"Come on! Get up!" Shouts their neighbor, pulling Jeod and Helen to their feet and heading for the aperture in the wall, he was visible as a dark shadow in the dirty atmosphere. Once outside he looks back at them.
As they storm out of the house a loud groaning squel echos behind them. Jeod and Helen don't look back as their house crumbles to the ground, throwing debris into the road where a cart and horse were nervously waiting.
"Get in the cart." Said William, climbing up the carriage step, causing the vehicle to shift slightly at his wieght, then he lept to the drivers seat, grasping the reigns.
They clambered in and was suprised to find William's wife and child, huddled in the corner. They exchange brief nods when the carriage began moving, jolting them to their seats. The horse is charging through the city, struggling to keep balance on the uneven ground.
Jeod peers out the window. The street starts to buckle, throwing the carriage to and fro. Left and right buildings are shaken and smashed like toys, the taller ones are lifted by the shifting ground and pushed into others, causing them to collapse in falling clouds of dust.
William maneuvers the carriage through the crumbling neighborhood. Right in front of their eyes, streets disappear, trees fall, houses implode, and people run for safety. Before long Teirm is unrecognizable, every part of the city is uneven with chunks of earth either risen higher than its lower counterpart, or crumbled in the deep chasm that ran through the city.
The gigantic fissure cracks open wider, devouring larger parts of Teirm, and running paralell with the coast. Black smoke climbs into the sky, blurring the atmosphere with blotches of imperfection. The vapors were created by thick caps of flame that lined the tops of half destroyed buildings.
The carriage plumeted downhill, a street that was once leading to an uphill church. The religious building now lay shoved into the side of a cliff, its steeple lying on its side, pointing towards the sky. William steered the horse between the fallen church and the courtyard fountain.
As they passed the fountain, a shop along the ground above them, slide down the cliff and poured out across the courtyard, smashing into the church with enough force to bring the rest down.
The carriage burst out onto the main road that led straight out of Teirm, except it was now a jagged line covered in fleeing citizens and debris. The people were stopping and looking behind them only to scream in terror and continue running forward. The fear that plagued their faces was enough to make Jeod look out the back window.
The ground had shifted upward and moving towards them. It followed a similar pattern to a wave, except it was a solid surface that moved with no fluidity, crushing anything that wasn't wiped out by the previous tremor. Wood was blasted agianst the right carriage window, cracking it, and hitting William in his side.
Through the window Jeod could see his neighbor take one hand off the riegns and grasp his chest. Suddenly the ground shakes again, causing the horse to fall, breaking both its front legs and causing it to writh in pain. William is thrown from the front of the carriage and onto the street where he collides with another man.
The carriage tips over on its side and several wheels pop free. Jeod's head starts to pound as he is thrown into the roof. Helen screams and Williams wife crashes into the other seat. The ground continues to rumble.
In seconds William is on the side of the carriage, ripping the door open and holding out a hand for them to grab.
"Come on, the... wave, well its nearly here."
He pulls his wife out first, helping her to the ground with their son in her hands. Then he turns for Helen, when her feet touch the ground, Willaim grabs Jeod's arm, pulling him out of the carriage.
"We have to get out of here!" Jeod shouted to William, taking Helen's hand and running in the opposite direction of the destructive wave of shifting earth.
They soon joined the stampede of humans, storming through falling structures and over crumbling roads. In the distance Jeod noticed that the land was lifting as one until, as if the entire coast was lifting away from the rest of the continent. Behind the raised land was thick clouds of dirt and debris, blotting out the background and much of the sky.
As seconds turned to minutes they found themselves running at an incline as the entire coast and Teirm was being lifted higher and steeper. Buildings that had survived the wreakage were now begining to crumble and slide down towards the ocean. Water was rushing up and over the city as, chunk by chunck, it drifted into the sea.
This sight caused them to push themselves harder. Jeod and Helen soon lost William in the crowd, and had to depend sollenly on each other as their climb led them closer to escaping Teirm. At one point the ground became too steep to continue, they had to resort to leaning agianst a cracked ruin of a bakery till the ground broke off of the original piece and leveled out horizontally.
They sped their process until their awarness of what was happening dawned upon them. The chunk of land that had broken free was begining to slide down the other side of the rising land, getting pelted by the debris from the earth above them.
The freefall was thrilling yet terrifying. Jeod and Helen held onto anything around them, as long as the handholds were stable. As their velocity increased, falling objects around them appeared to be floating as their decent leveled out. Helen's grip on a wooden pole slipped and she seemed to be hovering above the ground, screaming.
Jeod reached out for her, trying desprately to reach her hand. She was shouting for him, her face was striked with an unfathomable terror, a look which nearly killed him.
"Helen! Helen, grab my hand!"
He spotted a tear flee her eye when a loud boom shook them. Dust rose upward violently and everything that was falling suddenly slammed into the ground. Jeod lost sight the second it happened, all went black and the memory ended.
(A/N)
I am terribly sorry for what happened and I really hope that the wait didn't disappoint you all. I posted chapter 15 two weeks ago and it said that the story was updated, but when I went to preview it, cause I preview every chapter I post, It wasn't showing up. So I went back to fix it and found out that the file for the entire chapter had been deleted somehow?
So I had to rewrite it. It was going to be the longest chapter to celebrate me getting my laptop, over 4000 words. Then I had to redo it all and I was really aggrivated, I've been writing this chapter for over four weeks, including the time it took to write the first time. Hopefuly you enjoyed this chapter. I hope it hasn't been to much of a wait for you all. The inspiration for the Teirm scene came from the movie 2012, the California scene where a 10.9 earthquake destroys the west coast
Reply to Reviews:
Niet Boeiend- I'm glad you like the fact that the Riders and their dragons can get injured. I'm sorry that I haven't put Eragon in the recent chapters, but I will try to add him next. Probably Chapter 16 or 17. I assume you enjoyed this chapter?
- It seems alot of people loved the Ghana and Nithrem scene, so I'm guessing I did something right. I hope the action in this chapter met your fancy. I hope you enjoyed and will continue to.
Luckyponygirl- CLICK THE NEXT BUTTON AND COME ON DOWN! Lol. Your one of many who enjoyed the G/N scene, I'm glad you liked it. I plan on encorporating that aspect as I go on so that'll be interesting. It really feels like a very long time since I wrote the last chapter, I really am sorry for the long wait :(
Everlasting Dragonfire- Thank you alot! I hope you like this chapter as well. And thank you for giving me a tip, if there is anything you would like to see done, let me know.
Guest- WOW! Thank you for the sudden burst of support and positive feedback. I'm glad you like the characters' complexity. I don't think I will go for a job as an author, but thanks for the suggestion, it really makes me feel good when people like you give as much support as you do. Don't wait any longer, here is chapter 15.